When it comes to New Year’s resolutions, improving personal finances “isn’t anything new,” according to an update from TrueAccord.
But as we look ahead to 2023, TrueAccord reveals that they “see more and more Americans adding serious financial goals to their list.” A recent Ascent survey “found 66% of Americans plan on making a financial resolution.”
According to TrueAccord, your business should “be paying attention to the New Year goals of consumers: it’s the ideal time to support your customers to pay off debt (one of the most common financial resolutions for 2023) by meeting them where they are—with the right message, right channel, and right time.”
As noted in a blog post, financial resolutions “aren’t new, but the number of Americans making them is rising (which might have something to do with rising delinquency rates).”
For 2022, it is “estimated that more than 92 million Americans made financial new year’s resolutions, compared to only 60 million who reported making a financial resolution in 2021.”
And surveys “found that 41% of respondents expressed a strong desire to prioritize paying down debt in 2022—a trend that will continue into 2023 for good reason.”
For six consecutive months, there have been “increases in the 30+ days past due delinquency rates, with those accounts showing a 3.28% increase month over month in October,” according to Experian’s November Ascend Market Insights.
Looking ahead, TransUnion predicts delinquency rates “could rise to 2.6% at the end of 2023 from 2.1% by year-end, which would represent a 20.3% year-over-year increase in delinquent accounts if the projections prove accurate.”
Regardless of consumers’ personal financial goals, “these delinquency rates and predicted trends are a sign that if you’re not already tailoring your collections communications to today’s consumer preferences, then a better engagement strategy needs to be your organization’s resolution for 2023.”
As mentioned in the update from TrueAccord, meeting consumer preferences is “about more than just boosting your bottom line (although that is a bonus)—showing empathy as delinquencies continue to rise can help retain customers even during their often stressful experience of being in debt.”
An early December survey from U.S. News & World Report shows “that 81.6% of Americans who have credit card debt are experiencing anywhere from a little to a lot of anxiety about it.”
Among respondents to the Ascent survey who plan to make financial New Year’s resolutions for 2023, “only 20% are optimistic about keeping them, with 63% predicting it’ll be too expensive to do so.”
As suggested by TrueAccord, you can “help your customers keep their resolutions by making it easier for them to engage on their own terms with the right message through the right channel at the right time, and recover more in 2023.”
As all these recent surveys have shown, consumers “are literally telling us that they want to pay down debt in the new year.”
But treating them “in a one-size-fits-all approach can fall flat when trying to engage an individual, especially when it comes to sensitive financial situations or delinquent accounts.”
In fact, 72% of consumers say “they only engage with personalized communications, so don’t miss the opportunity to communicate in a way that resonates with them.”
For more details on this approach, check here.